James Woods Has a Posse

The parking lot attendant at the New Bedford ferry to Martha’s Vineyard is a James Woods fan – and not just because the former Rhode Islander made his bones in Hollywood and still manages to get home every now and then. (Apologies for keeping my source anonymous, but when I spoke with her, I didn’t tell her I might be preserving her comments for posterity. Those determined to confirm that this conversation took place can find her at the ferry dock seven days a week.)

“I love all of his movies,” she told me, speaking of the one-time Warwick resident who, according to the blog site NNDB, has earned fame as an actor by playing “a long list of ruthless creeps and cold-blooded bastards.”

While I waited for the ferry to Oak Bluffs, she went on: “A few weeks ago he just drove up, with his wife or girlfriend or whatever, she looked about 20, and we chatted. He got out of the car and asked his wife or girlfriend or whatever to take a picture of us. He asked my e-mail and I told him but he didn’t write anything down so I figured, yeah, whatever. Two days later the picture came through. He remembered.”

In fact, most of the celebrities that come through New Bedford en route to the Vineyard, she said, are pretty down to earth.

“Bill Murray is just a regular guy,” she said. “He brought his family over to see the fireworks the other night. Just drove right up, dropped them off at the ferry, took the car to the Whale’s Tooth (parking lot) and got on the bus with everybody else.”

Last year, Jim Belushi stood next to her for half-an-hour, waiting for a ride.

“He kept saying what a beautiful place this was,” she said. “Real working-class, but beautiful. He loves it here. Of course, he’s not looking for a job around here. Might think differently then.”

Rise of the blue crabs
Rhode Island water temperatures are running three to five degrees higher than average this summer. While it’s irresponsible to cite a much-hotter-than-usual summer as a definite sign of global climate change, that caution will do little to assuage the fears of those who worry about the Baltimorification (or Delawarification) of the Ocean State. Where Rhode Island once represented the northern reach for many sea creatures, now it seems to be within easy reach of any southern swimmer. But what about the local marine life – lobster, cod, flounder – that prefer a colder bath?

The changing nature of species migrating to Rhody or establishing residence here might be a more reliable indicator that something’s different, weather-wise. Last week a 6-foot sea turtle was spotted in Rhode Island Sound. While certainly not foreign to these waters, large sea turtles – including leatherbacks and loggerheads – are being reported in unusually high numbers by Rhode Island boaters, who’ve seen them paddling in the waters between Block Island and Watch Hill.

Even stranger is the influx of blue crabs, some of them monsters in their own right, crawling around Narragansett Bay. The blue crab invasion, which was also reported on the Vineyard during my stay there, seems to have taken hold everywhere, including Waterplace Park just below the Providence Place Mall. Now, I’ve got nothing against blue crabs, especially on the boil with some cold Narragansetts on ice. But if gaining the blue crab means losing the lobster, Half Shell may have to migrate to Nova Scotia.

The crazy season
The November elections are just around the corner, which means it’s time for New England’s favorite biennial autumn activity – voter fraud. The Cranston Board of Canvassers recently received notarized voter registration cards for Elizabeth Taylor, Rudolph Valentino and Dracula. The astute reader may note that at least two of these voters are dead (well, one is undead), all of them wore (or wear) sunglasses and none of them are Rhode Islanders. But that didn’t stop somebody from notarizing their registration cards. If I were a betting man, I’d say we’re looking for a notary public named Renfield. Then again, here in bloggerland, it doesn’t get much better than the possibility that Dracula could cast the deciding vote for the next Rhode Island governor.

This week’s back-to-school question: What did you do on your summer vacation?

Postscript: Lament for a Lobster

We here at Half Shell have a heavy heart and a guilty conscience after learning that Rhody’s celebrity yellow lobster – whose discovery garnered headlines across the globe – died last week, having succumbed to the cruel ravages of fame and the public’s insatiable demand to be part of the phenomenon.

After too many days in the spotlight in which the lobster was repeatedly manhandled, it was sent to the University of Rhode Island’s Narragansett Bay Campus for rest and recuperation. But apparently all of the attention had overstressed the lobster – dubbed “Tyler,” in honor of the 9-year-old New Hampshire boy whose mother took the first images of Rhody lobsterman Denny Ingram and his find that circulated around the world. Despite the best efforts of Bay Campus employees to provide him with plenty of oxygen and food, optimal water temperature and ample places to hide, Tyler’s immune system just gave out.

So it’s a sad day here at Half Shell, especially knowing that because of our incessant need for column and blog fodder, we contributed to the demise of a crustacean that never sought the limelight. While we generally espouse a life that avoids the celebrity treacle of supermarket tabloids, TV buzz and the widespread stalkerazzi mindset, we got sucked into the yellow lobster’s media glow. Most of us could care less about seeing the stars in cement along Hollywood Boulevard, but if someone wanted to brand a yellow lobster in the brick and cobblestone of Thames Street in Newport, we would make the pilgrimage to pay our respects.

Bloggers and lobsters have a lot in common. Both are bottom-feeders. The truth is, if the yellow lobster had emerged from its pot in a shell of a different color, it would have been boiled red and eaten two weeks ago. But that doesn’t absolve us from our role in killing the crustacean with curiosity. It’s too late to make it up to Tyler, but perhaps his legacy can live on. Someone with musical talent in Rhode Island could start a band called Yellow Lobster. (I’m thinking a reggae/rock/sea chantey group.) A village in need of a tourist attraction could host the Yellow Lobster Seafood Festival. The ghost of Yellow Lobster could join the living gargoyles at WaterFire Providence. Blount Seafood could mount a giant Yellow Lobster on the side of I-95 opposite the New England Pest Control’s Big Blue Bug, creating a gateway of kitsch in Rhode Island. A new dish, the Yellow Lobster Roll – lobster salad made with mustard instead of mayo – could be introduced at Hemenway’s.

What is the best way to pay tribute to the life of the yellow lobster?

[Blogster’s note: Half Shell will be taking a one-week hiatus to hunt and consume various sea creatures while avoiding presidential entourages in the waters off Vineyard Sound next week. Back Monday, Aug. 30.)

Sea Quest

You know you live in Rhode Island when more people would rather see a yellow lobster than run into Jeri Ryan, the actress who played Seven of Nine in “Star Trek: Voyager” and starred in “Boston Public” and “Leverage,” and who can now be spotted filming scenes for the medical drama “Body of Proof” in the Ocean State. (She’s third from the left in the photo.)

The yellow lobster, a one-in-30-million find, was plucked from Narragansett Bay’s East Passage by Denny Ingram, and resided for a week in a blue basket inside a little shack selling lobster and crabs at the Fishermen’s Co-op on the State Pier in Newport before being donated to the University of Rhode Island Bay Campus in Narragansett for display and study. Since I chronicled my encounter with the rare crustacean on the paper side of things this week, I’ll spare my ink-stained Thursday readers the redundancy, but the trip also prompted thoughts on what an odd summer it has already been for sea creature sightings in these parts.

Although it remains nameless, the yellow lobster has received the most global press for a local marine animal since the mammal dubbed “the Warwick manatee” took the scenic route through Rhode Island a few summers ago. (I even remember a sign outside of Jim’s Dock with a drawing of the manatee, welcoming it to Jerusalem. The manatee, which eventually reached Cape Cod, reportedly snacked from a drainage pipe in Warwick on its journey. In the drawing at Jim’s Dock, the cartoon manatee claimed that the chowder and clam cakes tasted better in South County.)

Earlier this April, nearly 100 North Atlantic right whales – representing about a quarter of the entire population – were spotted cavorting just off Block Island. All summer, reports of great white sharks feasting on seals off Chatham on Cape Cod have raised anxieties among local beachgoers. The sighting of another shark last week off Horseneck Beach in Westport, just a stone’s throw away from Rhody, only increased the collective worry. Of course, fishermen have long known that Rhode Island waters are part of Shark Alley, a stretch that runs along the extreme Atlantic edge from Long Island to Block Island to Martha’s Vineyard to Nantucket, where some of the biggest and fiercest sharks in the world congregate. But it’s rare to see them so frequently close to shore. Then again, there’s a fishermen’s maxim: “Two summers of seals, then a summer of great whites.” With seal populations exploding in Narragansett Bay, we may all need a bigger boat.

Give the sharks credit, they’ve got great timing. The Horseneck Beach shark popped up on the first day of "Shark Week," the Discovery Channel’s seven-day extravaganza celebrating all things shark. As cable TV’s longest-running and most-watched series of programs, “Shark Week” is as much a part of popular culture as the Super Bowl or the Academy Awards. It also happens to be the 35th anniversary of “Jaws,” which was filmed on Martha’s Vineyard but is remembered fondly hereabouts as the movie in which Quint (Robert Shaw) drank Narragansett by the can.

This week’s question: What name should we give the yellow lobster?

Feeling Massachusetts

Lately Rhode Island headlines have been dominated by stories about rich guys from Massachusetts playing ball with Little Rhody while pushing Taxachusetts to the sidelines. And Bay Staters are not happy about it.

Let’s take them one at a time.

Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry, who owns homes in Boston and Nantucket, decided to base his $7-million yacht, Isabel, in Rhode Island. By doing so, Kerry would be spared a one-time sales tax of $437,500 in addition to about $70,000 in annual excise taxes. After island-hopping between Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard since the Fourth of July weekend, Kerry recently placed his 76-foot sloop in a Portsmouth shipyard, where it is undergoing routine maintenance. In Rich Guy Land, this is what’s known as good business, since what Kerry is doing is perfectly legal. But in an age when states are struggling to stay solvent, it’s also the kind of thing that reminds everyone how ridiculously lopsided the rules in Rich Guy Land can be. Being an experienced sailor, Kerry recognized the ill political winds blowing broadside and quickly tacked, informing the Massachusetts Department of Revenue last week that he had every intention of paying taxes to the home port – even if the vessel isn’t docked there.

Even more controversial was the R.I. Economic Development Corporation’s decision to guarantee a $75 million loan to former Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling’s video-game firm, 38 Studios. By procuring the loan from Rhody taxpayers, Schilling can proceed with plans to move his studio from a Maynard, Mass. mill complex to somewhere comparable in Rhode Island. As Providence Journal columnist Bob Kerr noted in a piece last Wednesday:

The $75 million is 60 percent of the guaranteed loans that the state can grant for high-tech and knowledge-based companies under a law passed in June.

So that’s 60 percent for a video game shrouded in secrecy that may or may not have the breadth and scope of Pong – and 40 percent for anyone else out there that might have a good idea. As someone who hasn’t played a video game since a brief college flirtation with Joust and a strange, mid-1980s obsession with the Arkanoid machine at Giro’s Spaghetti House in Peace Dale, I’m not qualified to judge the potential of video-game development to the Rhode Island economy.

The bigger question for Rhode Island is why are we suddenly dueling with Massachusetts over yachts and video games? Sure, we’ve had our differences before. In 1658, some Pawtuxet residents got so fed up with the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations that they pledged their allegiance to Massachusetts (only to change their minds four years later when presumably they realized they’d have to pay Bay Colony taxes on their horses). In 1746, King George settled a dispute between the two states by giving Rhode Island “the Attleborough Gore,” making up most of what is now known as the East Bay. Despite these flare-ups, Massachusetts and Rhode Island have generally co-existed as big brother and little brother in the New England statehood. Certainly the relationship is nowhere near as contentious as the one between Rhody and Connecticut. The next time we make it through a generation without some Nutmegger getting the itch to dispute our border and claim our beaches will be the first.

And yet, given the recently frosty climate between Bay and Ocean States, I guess the question needs to be asked: What would be worth stealing from Massachusetts?

Handle with Care

Every time you think that American culture has reached absolute nadir, you look deep into the abyss only to discover…more abyss. A New York company has come up with a plan to stick a celebrity in a box in Bryant Park then invite visitors to take a peek to see who’s inside (but not before signing a non-disclosure release). Our nation’s celebrity fixation being what it is, there’s no doubt that the “starbox” will be a big hit. Before long, B-list celebs will be lining up in droves to be Duct-taped into cardboard boxes all over Manhattan, the way they used to scramble for gigs on “Tales from the Crypt,” “The Love Boat” and “Fantasy Island.” Speculation is rampant on who might be the first boxed celebrity, but the bigger question might be: Can all of New York really keep a secret?

While pondering the notion that America at its lowest common denominator has always been a cross between freak show and peep show, the staff at Half Shell has found a subversive silver lining in the starbox gambit. We like to call it “Rhode Islander in a Box.” It’s a complete rip-off of the New York idea (payback for messing with our chowder) but it does allow for comic possibilities.

Rhode Islander in a Box, or RIB, could be transported by Segway to all corners of Little Rhody, depending on the occasion. We could unveil Rhode Islander in a Box at WaterFire Providence, for example, somewhere between the stone gargoyles and the Del’s Lemonade cart. Rhode Islander in a Box could be rented out for Gaspee Days, the Black Ships Festival or the St. Patrick’s Day Parade in Newport. It could have its own float at the Bristol Fourth of July Parade or its own Providence Art Window. At all of these locations, for a nominal fee to cover shipping and handling, viewers could actually gawk at the Rhode Islander in a Box for a predetermined length of time, an activity that on the surface is completely pointless, but on further examination, is even more so.

The key question, of course, is: Which Rhode Islanders would you like to see in a box? Keep in mind that these need to be living, breathing Rhode Islanders. (Note to self: The box will need air holes.) We’re not looking for Rhode Islanders who, may they rest in peace, have already been boxed. Roger Williams himself, tree root though he may be, does not belong in a box. We want contemporary, box-worthy Rhode Islanders: Like, say, Joe Mollicone. James Woods. Richard Hatch. Arlene Violet. Maybe a Cardi Brother. Maybe a Farrelly Brother. Maybe the alto saxophone player from Roomful of Blues.

And if we ever get around to a “Pop Goes the Weasel” version, how about: Buddy in a Box?

Village People

Recently I kayaked over to Annawamscutt, where now just a beach and a cluster of cottages are left to identify what was once a village. I saw osprey, a night heron, three red-tailed hawks and the usual gulls, geese and cormorants along the way; but no signs of industry, only nature and leisure. My launching point was my home port of Allin’s Cove in what was once known as the village of West Barrington, a former fishing ground for the Wampanoag long before it assumed its rather dull English name. The old post office no longer exists, the lace factory is now elderly housing. Only the corner barbershop, the marina and boatyard remain to signify the once thriving, working-class community of Bay Springs. Long a summer getaway for hordes of Pawtucket residents, the character of my neighborhood is changing. The spectrum ranges through teachers, restaurant owners, exiled New Yorkers, internationals, single moms, retirees, sailors, salvagers, handy men, artists, musicians and accountants, with a few lifers and Pawtucket natives still in the mix. Now both Annawamscutt and West Barrington are fringe neighborhoods in the East Bay town of Barrington linked by a coastline and a bike path. Such is the way of a village.

Rhode Island was once a jumble of villages – fragments of farm and cove, mill and woods that still resonate today if only as part of a certain independent crankiness statewide. Some have retained their names, if not their cultural distinctiveness. Others have disappeared. Many, I suspect, I have visited without even realizing it, for I could not tell you where to find them on any map.

They include Arctic in West Warwick, Arkwright, Quidnick and Summit in Coventry, Barberville and Locustville in Hopkinton, Coggeshall in Warren, Conimicut, Cowesett and Hoxsie in Warwick, Dyerville and Wanskuck in Providence, Forestdale in North Smithfield, Gazzaville, Mapleville, Mohegan, Saxonville, Tarklin and Whipple in Burrillville, Greystone in North Providence, Harmony in Glocester, Hummocks in Portsmouth, Liberty in Exeter, Lime Rock in Lincoln, Omega in East Providence, Stillwater in Smithfield, Vernon in Foster and White Rock in Westerly.

One of the advantages of working in South County at the Independent has been the opportunity to visit the vestiges of old mill towns and beach communities in villages such as Quonochontaug in Charlestown, Ashaway and Moscow in Hopkinton, Galilee and Jerusalem in Narragansett, Misquamicut, Watch Hill and Weekapaug in Westerly, Wood River Junction and Wyoming in Richmond, Rocky Brook, Perryville and Usquepaugh in South Kingstown, Frenchtown in East Greenwich, Hamilton and Slocum in North Kingstown. Work has taken me to the village of Pontiac in Warwick, identified by the Pontiac Mills, which are still condos-in-waiting. I’ve been to Fruit Hill in North Providence to get to Rhode Island College and Knightsville in Cranston to get to the Community College of Rhode Island. I marathoned through Apponaug, a village in Warwick, back in the day when the Ocean State Marathon began in the village of Narragansett Pier. I’ve taken leisurely drives to Sakonnet at the very tip of Little Compton and performed theater at a library and grabbed a bite to eat respectively and respectfully in the villages of Hope and Chopmist in Scituate.

In all, Rhode Island is home to as many as 250 villages, although more than a few are mostly defunct and a number of them survive only as ghost towns. Some have interesting pedigrees. Consider the following places in Westerly: The village of Avondale was originally called Lotteryville because its inhabitants at one time had won a state lottery to build homes there. The village of Misquamicut was once called Pleasant View supposedly because a prominent Victorian-era woman paused there on horseback and remarked on the “pleasant view.” The community of Napatree was wiped off the map by the Hurricane of ’38.

As I sign off on this post from a computer located in Wakefield village – or the village of “Historic Wakefield” to you travelers out there on Route 1 who might miss it through all the sprawl – I end with the week’s ceremonial question: What is your favorite Rhode Island village?

Oyster Night

Mondays are $1 oyster nights at DeWolf Tavern in Bristol, where I often find myself at the bar washing down the week’s varieties with an ale. DeWolf is not the only place to oyster it up in Little Rhody, but with many of the tasty pearl-makers going for almost $3 a shell these days, the buck-a-bivalve bargain is hard to beat. Most weeks the place has a selection from Canada, Massachusetts, Connecticut and the home state, offering a chance to compare tasting notes. I’ll be there again tonight, Tabasco and black pepper at the ready, if necessary.

Oysters are available year-round, but there’s something about summer that brings out the oyster fiend in folks, as raw bars and regular bars fill up with oval platters of half-shells on ice. You can taste your way around Rhode Island, traveling by tongue to sample Moonstones, Matunucks, Salt Ponds, Sakonnets, Rome Points, Watch Hills, Poppasquashes, Winnapaugs, Ninigrets and Wild Goose among the nearly three-dozen Rhody-born-and-bred varieties.

Savoring an oyster is as much a geographic as culinary experience. As author Rowan Jacobsen said in his guide to oyster eating, “A Geography of Oysters,” all oysters have a quality of “somewhereness.” Their sense of place is inherent in the flavors that emerge beyond their salinity. In other words, they taste like where they come from.

An excerpt from Jacobsen’s book featured the following note about Moonstones:

MOONSTONE
Point Judith Pond, Rhode Island

Some of the most savory oysters in the world come from a geographical arc running from the eastern end of Long Island, along the ragged Rhode Island coast, to Block Island, Cuttyhunk and Martha’s Vineyard: the line marking the terminal moraine of the most recent glacier. Along that arc, mineral-rich waters produce salty oysters with unparalleled stone and iron flavors, of which Moonstone is the reigning king.

While sampling oysters at McCormick & Schmick’s in Providence a couple of years ago, a friend and I tried a Rhode Island-grown oyster. Her description – “Tastes like swimming in the bay in summertime” – was perfect. Since I’ve been making notes on the subject, I’ve had oysters that tasted buttery, fruity, extra salty, or hinting of citrus, wine, even petrol. One good thing: I’ve never met an oyster that tasted like chicken.

In Louisiana, Creole recipes feature a lot of oyster dishes that are fried or baked, which seems like a waste of an oyster, although the dishes themselves are delicious, so maybe a few can be sacrificed in the pursuit of gastronomic bliss. The sad news for folks on the Gulf Coast is that their oysters are drowning in oil. One beloved New Orleans restaurant, called Charlie’s Seafood, was forced to change its menu to survive, and according to a recent Miami Herald article, the chef isn’t exactly happy about it.

“Charlie’s is a place that celebrates Louisiana seafood and here I am frying calamari from Rhode Island,” says [Frank] Brigsten, an award-winning chef who also owns his eponymously named contemporary Creole cuisine restaurant uptown. “I feel like somehow I am betraying my customers by not giving them oysters. I feel like I am wearing someone else’s clothes.”

As great as Rhody seafood is – and between the fish and the shellfish, we enjoy some of the best in the world – it’s hard not to feel devastated for those who live along our Southern coast. Just as Rhode Islanders wouldn’t be Rhode Islanders without our intimate relationship to Narragansett Bay – a place that serves alternatively as playground, buffet and spiritual companion – coastal residents of Louisiana and Texas feel the same way about the Gulf. So tonight, with every Rhode Island oyster that slides down my gullet, I’ll thank the bay and pray to the oyster gods to keep them coming. And, if any greedy, incompetent corporate types start poking around our sea beds, release the giant clams…

What flavors might you expect to taste in a Rhode Island-grown oyster?